frisson
by verity candor
Summary: It's a sparkling feeling, like living, and breathing, and a little bit like burning, just around the edges – it's like wine in your throat, and fingers on your skin, and you, and this – and it, all of it, it just feels so alive.
1. lucy

_we're like poetry in three dimensions_

-x-

_Have I told you lately that I love you?  
Have I told you there's no one else above you?  
Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness,  
Ease my troubles, that's what you do.  
You fill my life with laughter, somehow you make it better,  
Ease my troubles, that's what you do.  
– Have I Told you Lately?, Rod Stewart_

"And so now we're having an argument?" Lorcan said in disbelief, "Honestly? I mean, I'm still not sure if this isn't just you trying to make me buy you something, Lu –"

"It's absolutely not, and you know it, Lorcan Scamander." Lucy frowned at him over the top of her novel. It was Pippa S. Stockard's third, and from what Lucy could tell, it was just as awful as the first two. _Note to self, tell Aunt May to go very far away if she offers you reading material._

Lorcan looked shot her an offended look. "Oh, we're breaking out full names now, _Lucy Nymphadora?_" He asked.

Lucy winced and shot him a glare. "I'm going to kill you for that later, Lorcan."

"Kiss me, or kill me – it's always mixed messages with you, Lu." Lorcan hid a grin and loped over to the kitchen. "Coffee, then? Or the usual?"

"Tea, please. You know how I–"

"Two sugars and cream, Lu. I know." Lorcan rolled his eyes. "And, just for the record – I don't think we argue less than usual, we're just less violent about it."

"Oh, yes – pity the poor appliances we used to throw. You and your great bleeding heart, Lorcan." Lucy smiled teasingly at his back.

Lorcan raised an eyebrow as he turned back to her, "Bleeding heart? Is that swearing I hear from Ms. Prefect?"

Lucy frowned at him, "It is _not_." she said, searching in vain for a throw pillow or something to toss at him. (She'd left them all at her mum's again, hadn't she?) "A bleeding heart – as in soft-hearted. Pointlessly concerned about things which don't concern you."

"All that for loving the coffee-maker? It's a brilliant invention, Lu, I can't understand why you won't try it." Lorcan shrugged, then grinned slyly while he searched the cupboard for the teacups. "And, also, what's this _soft_ business? I assure you I am –"

"Stop." Lucy said flatly. "Please. Stop."

"…Aw, Lu."He gave her a pout, then turned back to the teacups. He picked out the one with a purple hippo on it for Lucy. She hated purple.

"Just give me my bloody tea, Lorcan." She said exasperatedly. "And, yes, before you say anything, that _was _Ms. Prefect swearing."

"Touchy, touchy, touchy." Lorcan said, making a face at the teacups, "If I didn't know better, _I'd _say you were pregnant or something."

Lucy didn't respond.

"Hello?" Lorcan turned to her expectantly. "Lu? Did you hear me? I implied you're with child?" He picked up the tea and carried it over, to find Lucy peering at him with a thoughtful half-smile on her face.

"What?" he said. "No. No way." When she just continued to smile, he collapsed into a chair.

"Oh, bloody, buggering _hell_. Oh, hell, Lu." He shook his head wildly. "You can't be having a baby." He said a little desperately. "I mean, I would – it would – I would _know, _wouldn't I? If you were? I'd just _know_. And you _wouldn't, _would you? Like that? Oh, Merlin."

"Merlin?" Lucy said, sounding amused. "I don't think he's had much experience, to be honest."

Lorcan snorted, "Except the one he raised to be King of England. Honestly, you call yourself a Ravenclaw. Seriously, though Lu," He set aside the teacup and swallowed nervously. "This is… I mean, this is serious business, isn't it? I mean, hell, a _baby_ – I, and I – it's bloody fantastic Lu, I kind of can't believe it, I mean, are you sure? - but we – we'll need to plan, and everything, and we – we – the band's barely taken off, and you're still not published, and I mean – how will we pay for anything? But, I mean, it's – it's great - And - what – what are you – why are you – Lu, are you laughing?"

Lucy was hiding behind her novel, shoulders heaving suspiciously.

"– You're laughing – Why are you _laughing_ – you – you bloody, fucking _bitch, _Lu." He gaped at her. "You were joking?"

Lucy was still trying to hide between the pages of her novel. She tried to speak through what looked like tears of laughter. "Oh – God –" she choked out, "You – you should have seen _your face –_"

Lorcan looked at her, unable to fight a smile. "You…you just _played me – _I just got played by my bloody fiancée – Jesus, Lu." He snickered, and rested his chin against Lucy's head as she fought off her laughter, "Here I was, terrified we'd – we'd be inflicting our offspring on the world, or something, and we'd have to sell the flat, and – oh, God, we'd have had to get _my_ mum's idea for a name – bloody Lysander's already asked _yours _for his and Molly's – and we'd end up with a baby named Moonshine Coriander or something – and, bloody fucking hell, Lu - " he shook his head helplessly. "God, If I didn't love you, I'd have to kill you for that."

"Kiss me or kill me, hmm?" Lucy looked up, sounding absurdly pleased with herself, "Now," she said, putting on a thoughtful expression, "Who was I just talking to about mixed messages?"

Lorcan shot her a surprised look, and then grinned wickedly and leaned downwards. "I dunno," he murmured. "_I_ was interrupted in the middle of a chat about _being soft, _myself – shall we fix that?"


	2. victoire

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) _

_-x-_

_I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things  
We can do the tango just for two  
I can serenade and gently play on your heart strings  
Be your valentino just for you _

_ – Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy, Queen_

Sometimes, when it's dark, Teddy will lean over and press his mouth to her skin – she feels his eyelashes by her chin, and he hums love songs into her neck. Victoire is usually half-asleep, but the rumble of his voice is pleasant and gentle and enough to send a sharp, tingling thrill down her spine.

The story goes like that, really.

Nobody writes stories about perfect couples. Storybooks, history books – they remember the burning, flaring passions – the couples who have to tear themselves apart before they build each other back up – the mad, the wild, the flawed.

Nobody wants to hear about two people who don't destroy anything, two people for whom the world, the time, the place, _everything_ falls together.

Because it's such a dull narrative, to read about things going just right. It's so boring to read about people living lives with no tension, no strain, no sparks or fires.

Victoire thinks she'd like that story – about the people who fit like gloves, who light up when they see each other, who walk into rooms hand-in-hand, and lean against each other instead of the walls.

He takes her out to dinner, and offers her his arm, and she tucks her hand into his elbow. The servers get a little misty-eyed when they smile at each other over their entrees.

This isn't an epic tale.

They'll be forgotten like a wave or a breeze – beautiful while it's before your eyes, but so everyday, so very common, that people can just shut their eyes and wait for the next one to arrive.

They lean their heads together at the kitchen table, caught in the heavy beam of the sunlight, shutting their eyes and tangling their fingers together.

They don't burst together, beaming and burning and crashing in one moment – banging, creating and destroying, leaving a trail of fire like a warpath on the sky.

Teddy learns the meandering pattern of freckles down her back, she runs her fingers over his scars like she owns them – she teaches him the points of her collarbone, the curves of her mouth, he teaches her the sharp angles of his jaw, the tiny furrow between his eyebrows.

They meet and they fall in love over nineteen birthdays, countless garden parties, teacups and Transfiguration homework, Prefect rounds and _'I hoped I'd see you'_s.

Blonde hair and yellow, red, black and blue hair, thrown in relief on a pillowcase – they promise never to ask for more from each other.

They smile through their days – sometimes absurdly, flatly, insincerely, irritatingly, sourly. Sometimes they smile, they smile and smile and smile.

This isn't a story for the ages, with two people thrown larger-than-life against the backdrop of their times, their lives, their society – crystallized in one immortal moment for all eternity.

This is the story of the boy-next-door falling in love with the girl-next-door; of two people who couldn't be anybody but themselves, who only ever needed one another to have enough.

They won't live forever. They'll just live long enough.


	3. lily

_and does it sting on the way down?_

-x-

_There's that look in your eyes  
I can read in your face that your feelings are driving you wild…  
__I can see what you want…  
Ah, but girl, you're only a child_

_- __Does Your Mother Know?, ABBA_

The walls of Hogwarts are always a little punchdrunk with madness – with all the girls and the boys who can't see anything but the heat, and the flames and the fire of being able to feel.

But one girl, she's a little drunker, a little brighter than all the rest, because she feels with a heart too hot, too awake, too smoky and sharp to even touch –

And Lily, little Lily, with her hair so red it burns, and her eyes so green, green with _fire_, and her heart – ooh, her heart too hot to hold – that girl –

that girl with the world in her hands, she's _irresistible._

And Lily, little Lily, she reaches out and tosses back her hair, and she plays with boys 'cause they're _fun_ – and so _what_ if she's only in love with half of them, and the rest she strings along because a girl this hot, with a heart _this _bright – oh, she _burns, _she _burns _to be touched.

And Ced Longbottom is an accident_, _really – just a beautiful accident, with his pretty gold hair, and his blueshining eyes – and Lily can't help that he smiles so sweetly, so earnestly – she can't help knowing just how to touch him to make him blush (_burn_) red –

And Lily's all set for the game when Colin Longbottom pops up, blocking the way to Charms with his heavy brown bulk, leaning against the wall like a full stop.

He's nothing like his beautiful brother's spun gold – eighteen to Ced's fifteen, Colin Longbottom is solid and earth-brown and hardened in the sun – and _sharp_, sharp enough to _cut_.

"I know what you're doing." He says simply, and Lily raises her eyebrow. "I know your sort of girl," he continues, "And if you break my brother's heart –"

"Excuse me," Lily says harshly, because no one, _no one, _has spoken like that to Lily, not _ever_ – "And who are _you, _exactly, to say that?"

And it's curious how it sort of, sort of _stings_ how he says _your sort _to her.

But, "I don't playto break _hearts_, Mr. Longbottom," she continues, "And Ced's a big boy – he can look after _himself –_"

Then Colin – _Longbottom – _looks up, and Merlin, is he smiling_? – _Yes_, _his mouth quirks up in the corner, and he says –

"I know what you play for, _Lily_. I know this is all just a game for you, just another toy–" He grows cold for a second, his smile like a slash,"And if you hurt him," he says, "I'll never forgive you."

"Wait just a _second_ –" Lily says, because for a second she sees _(ice to her fire) _someone worth talking to– but he's turned and he's walked away, he's gone without a word.

(And_ bam! flat – _there goes Lily, tripping on her feet and right over the edge –)

And Ced Longbottom is entirely forgotten after that meeting – it drags on for a couple weeks – but Lily's already got her eyes somewhere else, hotgreenorbs angling for the tall, hard boy who looked at her like she was nothing, and Lily _loves_ it – sending pointed looks at him in the halls, smiling daintily in the Great Hall – she's a master at this game – and, _oh_, it shows.

But Colin, stupid Colin, only looks pained – only looks over her shoulder at his brother's face, and – finally, one day, he whirls around and he bites out at her,

"What the fuckdo you think you're playing at – do you think this is funny?"

And she gapes (for just a second), before she's back: "Playing at what, Colin? I don't think I said anything –"

But he's not waiting, he charges on, sparking like lightning when he says, "You already broke one of us – and I _said_ I'd never forgive you – and is this just fun for you, to try and make it worse? To throw yourself at me like this, like I can't see it hurt him?"

And Lily just shakes her head, she's _actually _puzzled, because – "What does it even matter about him? Can't you see I want you?"

"No, you don't." he spits out, "You've never wanted anyone – you've never wanted anything– _look at him_." And he points at his brother, at Ced, "Look at _him, _and tell me you've ever wanted anything like he wants you."

She looks behind her, at Ced, with his gold and his shine all dimmed and drowning and, honestly, it's a bit _embarrassing_ to watch him shattering like that.

And she must not be showing the right feeling on her face, because Colin looks disgusted for a second before he glares again.

"I won't believe," he spits at her, "that you _want _me until I believe you're done playing. I won't believe it until you can show me it hurts you when I walk away. I'm not just a toy, little girl, I'm not going to just play your _game_."

She stares, openmouthed, when he walks away from her _(again)_.

(And _bam! flat – _that's Lily, little Lily, tripping onto the long slip and slide –

and it's a _long_ achy slide to

hell –_)_

She can't even understand why it throbs so much – the sickened look on his face, the way his words gnaw into her mind – and she just wants to understandwhat he means when she tries to speak to him in the halls.

But it he's so icily angry – he won't look, he won't talk – nothing. Nothing at all.

And Lily's never feltthis way.

_- stupid game, won't believe you, just for fun, look at him, look at him, look at _him_ – _and Ced Longbottom doesn't look so silly anymore, not when Lily looks in the mirror, and is that her_, _with the silly little frown, and the dull hair, and the clouds over her brightbright green eyes?

And suddenly, it's just desperate, when she calls his name and he doesn't turn to look, and she clenches her hands and bites her lip so hard it leaves a mark, when she cries in the loo, and finally hears, really_ hears, _people talk about her – and, oh, _Merlin, _this burning, this fire – it doesn't glitter or sing – it just _hurts. _

Bit by bit, sparkle by sparkle, Lily breaks in the shadow of his wintry storm.

She just breaks.

And soon she's got her hair in shambles, and her eyes smeared dark from tears and hurt, and –

_damn, that girl's got it bad, _they say –

But he only stings her with the corner of his eyes, and –

I'm not playing your game, little girl

It's like a slap, like words being spat in her face, and the day she grabs his shirt in the corridor, her flaming green eyes begging, _pleading_, she doesn't know _what_ she's planning to say –

_I'm tired of chasing you –_

_I don't care if you don't want me –_

_Do you want me like _this,_ then? Broken? –_

_I hate you –_

_I love you –_

_Why can't you see through me? –_

_Why can't you see –_

"It's always a game for me." she settles on, (it's so _desperate_), "It's _always_ a game – I can't _help _it – but, you, _you're_ the only one I want to play, and, I, God, I –"

And he doesn't offer her forgiveness, or sweep her into his arms, but when he leans down, his bark-brown eyes are soft, and it looks enough like _I'm sorry_ to make Lily weep.

(And_ bam! flat - _that's Lily, little Lily, and it's just that simple to knock her off her feet,

and right into

your arms_–_)


	4. hugo

_i guess i  
missed you on the way in  
__  
-x-_

_Like Harrison Ford, I'm getting frantic._  
_Like Sting, I'm tantric._  
_Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy._  
_Like Kurasawa, I make mad films._  
_Okay, I don't make films –_  
_But if I did they'd have a Samurai_  
_– One Week, Bare Naked Ladies_

Ricky lives three doors down from Hugo's grandparents and has one of those Muggle gaming systems.

Which is how Hugo meets him the summer he's thirteen - Rose is at the Burrow this summer, so Mum's sent Hugo to see Grandma Jane and Granddad Mark.

Hugo smiles politely over dinner and tells them that of course he's enjoying himself, why would they think he wasn't, but there's really abso-bloody-lutely nothing to do but watch Grandma Jane knit, and finally, Hugo takes to wandering the streets, kicking at stones and glowering at the ground.

He quite literally bumps into the brown-haired boy on the third day, and mutters a surprised "Sorry, didn't see you." The other boy beams at him and says, "S'all right. Are you bored?"

Hugo nods a bit unsurely, and the boy beams again and launches into a mile-a-minute monologue about new gaming system, brilliant graphics, won't believe it till you see it, and OPERATION: Kill Switch, just got it last month and Hugo finds himself being dragged slightly against his will into a yellow-painted house with drooping begonias in front.

Hugo figures he's a Muggle, since he uses a key to open the door, and he's got no wand thrust into his boot or his pocket. Not to mention that the doorknocker doesn't start hollering an off-key version of an Italian aria at him, which Hugo considers a bit of a relief.

"Mum and Dad are in Africa," The boy mutters as he tosses the keys onto a table in the hall, "So make yourself comfortable, and don't worry about making a mess." He leads the way into the living room, and Hugo follows, still a bit nervously, as the boy, who finally introduces himself as Frederick-everyone-calls-me-Ricky, untangles a complicated knot of wires and tosses what-looks-like a brand new controller at Hugo. Hugo fumbles the catch, and grins embarrassedly, and Ricky proceeds not to notice as he flies about connecting things and continuing his monologue.

"…nobody's been around, everyone's off with their folks, and I thought I'd have no one to try it with for weeks, this is so brilliant, I can't believe that you were just out there…"

Hugo has had a bit too much of being unsettled at this point, so he asks if he can help with the wiring instead – and this, grinning at each other over the wormy black plastic, is what he will always consider the beginning to a wonderful, fulfilling, and thoroughly odd summer.

The next three weeks are spent huddled in the dark of Ricky's living room, with hints of light falling through the paisley curtains and Hugo furiously attempting to avoid getting trampled by armies of orcs/zombies/robots/clone-warriors.

He's atrocious at it, really, because the most experience he's had with elecktrics is Granddad Arthur and his Muggle monster-machine in the chicken coop. Learning about motorcycle engines and how to connect a bunch of wires is well and good, but it's not really all that useful when trying to do a combo kick-stab-decapitation on one of the Undead.

Consequently, he spends most of the time glaring angrily at the screen, trying to keep up with Ricky's player character as it jumps and leaps and manages to look much cooler than Hugo's – who somehow manages to run into (and occasionally through) walls and robo-clones. Repeatedly.

Ricky has the tendency to call his characters odd things like KILLER! and BLOODBATH! and yell out the names whenever he gets a kill. Hugo starts out with names like Henry and Roger and a puzzled look on his face before he slowly moves on to …The Man in Black, or …The Lone Gunman, and contents himself with a quiet "That's right," and an intent smile.  
There's one awkward day when Ricky plays as SAMURAI! And Hugo plays as …The Samurai and they blink a bit oddly at one another's screen, but mostly Hugo raises his eyebrows at Ricky and Ricky tells him he's boring and they get along just fine.

Hugo isn't really sure at which point it begins – possibly the one day he spends slightly mesmerized by the reddish piece of hair that sticks up next to Ricky's left ear, or perhaps the time FLAMEFANG! Opens a (large, ironplated and splendidly spiked) door for …The Beheader and gestures him through, or even, maybe, that one time Ricky stares at him and murmurs, "Did you know you've got very long eyelashes?", but at some point things begin to get… strange?

Yeah, strange.

It probably hits a high point the day he walks in the door and Ricky is grinning oddly at him from the living room.

"Err." Hugo says, blinking. "Hi?"

"We should go outside." Ricky says. "I mean, all we ever do is sit at home and play, right? And obviously, real boys don't just do that – I mean, they go outside and stuff, don't they? So we should go outside. And do things. Because, boys do things."

Hugo debates telling him about how he's spent every other summer of his life getting beat around the head with large blunt objects while attempting to do "boy things" outside, and how actually, he'd much rather be defeating the Goblins on level 107 and getting the power upgrade…

And then Ricky's brilliant smile takes on an edge of desperation, and Hugo says yes so he doesn't spend the rest of the day feeling like an awful human being.

They wander about the streets aimlessly, and, suddenly, Hugo's feeling a bit odd about just _how_ brightly Ricky is smiling, and, err, does this count as a date or something?

For the most part, Rose is kind of unbearable in an I'm-your-big-sister kind of way, but suddenly he feels a very desperate desire to have her around, even if it's just to ask what he's supposed to do when Ricky sends him those funny, shy-looking… _looks_ or that slight little smile?

So, okay, perhaps, just a teeny, tiny bit, Hugo's terrified out of his mind right now.

Somewhat.

"Ice cream." Hugo bursts out. "I want ice cream. Do they sell ice cream?"

Ricky blinks at him, then begins yanking him along by the wrist. "'Course they do." He says, cheerfully. "It's brand-new, actually, I think they only opened it a few months ago…"

Hugo's cursing his Weasley complexion, because he is positively _red _right now –_why is he blushing_- and he's trying to think of ways to disengage his wrist without Ricky noticing.

Ricky's seems to have no idea of the kind of knots he is twisting Hugo's stomach into, however, and all of Hugo's attempts to escape end in dramatic failure.

Hugo figures if he turns any redder, his blood vessels will begin to break, and he finally gives his wrist a frantic yank in a final attempt to get away_._

Ricky jerks back, tripping over his feet and onto the ground. He sends Hugo a shocked look, and Hugo abruptly feels as though he's been caught pureeing goldfish or something equally horrible.

"I – err, I'm sorry." Hugo says hurriedly. _Brilliant, Weasley – you've gone and stepped in it, now – he's really going to want to get ice cream, now. _"You know what?" he says, desperately, "We should just go home – we've got some more goblins to kill and all that, you know." He smiles in an approximate imitation of a corpse's death rictus.

Ricky's expression is slowly clouding over, and he mutters out a distracted "That's fine." While frowning angrily at the ground.

They walk home that way: Ricky looking angrily embarrassed, and Hugo… just looking, really, at leaves and things, and trying not to really think about how much of an absolute idiot he is.

Ricky gets more and more unhappily red as they get closer to the house, and Hugo's just thinking that he looks a bit like Dad gets after Mum's gotten another letter from Uncle Viktor, when Ricky turns around and snaps out. "Maybe you shouldn't come in." Hugo's already reaching for the door, so he frowns a little puzzledly for a second before the words hit him and he feels, well. Surprised.

"Sorry?" he says.

"You heard me." Ricky says, thrusting his chin upwards. "Go home."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Hugo says, turning all the way around. "_You're_ the one who wanted to go out – if _you_ didn't have any fun -"

"_I_ was fine – you're the one who couldn't even… even let us get an ice cream properly."

"Well, I – I wanted to get back and finish the level," Hugo blusters, "I didn't think that was so horrible-"

"So you're just here for my video games?" Ricky yells.

Hugo throws out his hands. "What – why would you – no, everything about you is completely _awful, _I'm really here for your _curtains_ -" He begins, sarcastically.

"Well, if you think I'm that awful, then maybe we shouldn't be here, then!" Ricky says furiously, and Hugo realizes that a) he's absolutely furious, and that b) he has _no_ idea what they're fighting about _whatsoever_.

Ricky stares at him, breathing heavily, and after a few minutes with no idea what to say, Hugo feels anger seeping slowly up his spine, and he turns around and heads home with the feeling that they're not speaking to one another at the moment.

The next few days, are truly, honestly, miserably dull. Not because Hugo's 'moping' as Grandma Jane suggests. It's just a bit duller than he remembers it. That's all. He doesn't have a problem sitting in his bedroom and hugging a pillow.

…So it's a little ridiculous.

But in his defense, it wasn't his fault. Ricky was the one who started it – no one asked him to start talking about 'long eyelashes' and what have you, or to totally confuse Hugo with his… confusing… words… and, Hugo, for your information is doing just bloody fine, thank you very much.

He cracks after three days, and dithers for two more, and they're finally back in the house playing Undead Menace III again, because Hugo just knocked on the door an hour ago – not because he was lonely or anything, just because there is honestly nothing to do in this town, really, you know?

They're both plopped on the floor in front of the television with a bowl of snacks between them, and, yes, technically, they're playing, but really Ricky's glowering at the screen, viciously making BLITZKRIEG! decapitate zombies, and Hugo's distractedly watching The Night Stalker get overwhelmed by the zombie hordes again, thinking very hard about things which have happened and how he's possibly an idiot and this mess actually his fault, maybe? He abruptly leaves The Night Stalker to his horrifying fate and tentatively turns around and stares at Ricky a bit before he asks if he's angry at him or something?

Ricky responds with some interesting, if anatomically difficult, suggestions, and Hugo decides that, yes, yes, he is.

The Night Stalker pops back on screen, newly prepared to defeat the undead army, and Hugo watches thoughtfully as a mutilated zombie leaps for his throat.

He's never actually considered… He was so busy being embarrassed… it never actually occurred to him that Ricky was angry because Hugo didn't actually mention… that maybe, Ricky thought Hugo didn't like him?

Oh. Oops.

He whirls around to say something, turns back, frowns at the screen a bit, and finally proceeds to lean over and kiss Ricky rather decisively on the mouth.

His heart is thumping furiously somewhere under his tongue, and part of him is trying to ignore the controller sticking into his stomach and the bowl of popcorn he accidentally knocked over, and part of him is thinking This is a bit silly, you're sitting in front of the television kissing someone and part of him is running furiously through his memories trying to remember did Rose ever talk to him about what to do with your hands when you're snogging? And mostly, he's just worried he's doing this all wrong and Ricky's going to beat him to death with a table lamp after he's done.

But apparently he shouldn't have bothered worrying, because Ricky looks flushed and bright and a little thrilled, and he's breathing in an interesting way which makes Hugo eager to try snogging him again, actually.

What Hugo actually does, though, is lick his lips and say, firmly, "I've had a brilliant summer this year, you know." Ricky turns a shade of red that would clash spectacularly with Lily's hair, and mutters, "Yeah, okay, that's wonderful, you bloody poof," and then reaches for his controller.

Hugo shrugs and turns back to the game, smiling, he's sure, like an utter idiot.

They both play like absolute crap, and The Night Stalker is hideously devoured four times in a row, but Hugo figures The Night Stalker can figure things out for himself – Hugo's busy thinking about how he's got the entire summer to come back here, day after day after day – how he's got three months to defeat zombies and kill robo-warriors and maybe try kissing Ricky with tongue, even.________________


	5. rose

_don't tell me that I've gone crazy and your beauty is  
only in my mind_

-x-  
_But did you know,  
That when it snows,  
My eyes become large and  
The light that you shine can be seen.  
–Kiss From a Rose, Seal_

Rose walks around with ink on her hands and half-smudged words scribbled on her wrists, and wild, spiraling tangles tangled into her hair.

Scorpius stares out at the world with half-lidded eyes and a blink as slow as water dripping; he leans against corridors with a spine so lazy, he needs a wall to hold him up.

No one's ever seen two people less likely to fall in love, but it's much too easy to suggest it – everyone loves star-crossed lovers, even though the only things Scorpius has ever crossed are the t's on his essays and Rose avoids star charts like the plague.

It's probably that which forces them together–

_"Are you going to ask me out, Weasley?" he mumbles exasperatedly one day.  
She raises an eyebrow. "No." she says.  
Scorpius shrugs and introduces himself._

–clumped like a defensive huddle, a barricade standing against the forces of the world_._

It must be around this time that they begin smiling at one another in the hallways – Rose nodding, Scorpius quirking his lips at her – And it doesn't take long for the image of Rose Weasley clearing through crowds with nothing but an eloquently raised eyebrow to become merged with the image of Scorpius Malfoy walking behind her, doing the same with his unearthly height.

Rose invites him to sit next to her at breakfast one day – to most watchers it looks almost icy, aloof and condescending – who knows what it looks like to Scorpius, because he smiles as he drops his bag next to her.

The next day, they sit together in a corner of the library, Scorpius detailing the procedure for the Heliodere Potion, Rose shaking her head in bewildered laughter.

It's not as though it makes any sense – it's only that neither of them feels the need to talk much, and having the offer of a table where they can just sit and think is a lovely little escape in the middle of the day. They sink into a comfortable haze that seems to end at the edges of their table, a little bubble sealed off from the world.

It takes over three months before they manage anything more than the occasional request for a name or a quill, and finally, six months in, Rose, frowning absently at a piece of parchment, looks up for a moment and thanks him. Scorpius' raised eyebrow is an obvious question, and she shrugs in response. It's for being here, she tells him.

After a few minutes, Scorpius thanks _her, _and murmurs that it's for treating him like he isn't his father. Rose nods, and, somehow, the entirety of the sixth month ends up being spent whispering their little secrets to one another - fiddling with papers or scribbling on parchments as they talk, as though they can mask the importance of their words behind their routine.

_Scorpius slouches because he hates being taller than his father.  
Rose doesn't like to talk because she used to stutter when she was six.  
Scorpius wants to move to Morocco.  
Rose wants to write.  
Scorpius loves his sister.  
Rose wishes she _had_ a sister – all she's got is Lily._

That summer, it's Scorpius who writes the first letter.

_Rose,_

_It's Scorpius.  
Having a good week?_

She doesn't know how long he labored over the parchment, quill poised between the _i_ and the _u_ of her name.

Then again, he doesn't know how widely she beamed when the letter arrived, how quickly she dug out a piece of parchment – it still takes three days to arrive, but that's because it's an entire roll of parchment long.

Scorpius will learn that this, in fact, is almost a short letter by Rose's standards.

It's as though she puts all of the words she can't say onto paper – the best horror story is from one of her roommates, who can attest to receiving by Owl Post a roll and a half of parchment on personal hygiene from Rose – while Rose sat and glared from the next bed.

_Why haven't you written? Where are you? What – why – when – where – how? _she shoves them all into long, flowing rolls that come winging over to find Scorpius during the summer. Most of them are spent berating him for his _atrociously short _letters – how does he expect to get anything across with only three lines, anyway – and Scorpius doesn't know it, but _this_ is where she sounds most like her mother.

With the ease of long practice, Scorpius unties the letters and sits down with a quill. He underlines things he thinks are interesting in blue and things he thinks are important in red, then sets them in neat rows at the bottom of his trunk, as though it were a textbook and he would be tested once school started. Then he sits and writes the same three line letters as always, and smiles at the thought of Rose's next, enormous response.

They nod at each other on the platform – Rose wearing her Head Girl badge proudly, Scorpius proudly clutching his younger sister's hand – and things are perhaps a little different.

Two weeks after school begins, Rose scribbles the password to her Common Room onto his hand with her quill, and looks up just in time to see his eyebrow shoot up. To his pleasure, she doesn't look embarrassed in the slightest.

"I want to see you." She tells him, instead. "So come find me."

He does, and they crouch together in front of the fire, smiling, shrugging, silent. The watch the flames, and in between, watch one another.

Scorpius speaks with his body – an expressive eyebrow, a turn of the head, a gentle shrug or a flick of his hand. The ripple of his movements outweighs the rumble of his speech to such an extent that Rose stops listening to most of the words he speaks at all, content to watch the fleeting expressions that flutter across his face.

The longer you know her, the less Rose speaks – all of her conversations tumble out into the world through her quill tip – stanzas of poetry, snippets of sentences, names, images – the day Scorpius realizes that she's wormed her way completely into his life, he wakes up with smudged dark letters scrawled over his hands in her small, spiky writing. A cryptic sequence - _viridi… quar- Ben - _has even been smeared unevenly onto his cheek over the night.

The _Ben_ worries him a bit, and he scrupulously checks over his hands to find where it's from, but it's vanished – it's become one of the mysterious stains rubbed into the lines of his palm and wrist.

Rose smiles when she sees him, and taps the side of her face. He rolls his eyes and shrugs, and then gives her a startled glance when she reaches up to rub at the smudged letters.

There's a moment then, when Rose's fingers still on his face, and they look at each other. Two people who needed words would say more, but all Scorpius does is reach up and cover her hand with his.

_"Are you going to ask me out, Weasley?" he mumbles exasperatedly.  
She chews on her lip. "No." she says, with a smile.  
Scorpius shrugs and does it himself._


	6. albus

_no,  
i won't let you close enough to hurt me_

-x-  
_You're aching, you're breaking  
And I can see the pain in your eyes  
Says everybody's changing  
And I don't know why_

_-Everybody's Changing, Keane_

Mairead Nolan was a great, bleeding ball of contradictions, and if Al said he didn't like it, he'd be lying.

"Why, if it isn't the lovely Mairead." He said, collapsing on the grass next to her. "What brings you into the great outdoors, m'dear?"

"I'm not your dear anything, Potter." She said, thumping him lightly over the head with a notebook. "And the better question would be: what brings _you_ to the great outdoors? After all," she began smugly, "_I_ play Quidditch."

Albus rolled over and pouted at her. "For your information, so do I, Ms. Nolan … well, commentating is a sort of sport." He amended. "I mean, it's practically a ten-mile sprint keeping the microphone away from old McG…" he said, then stared at Mairead when she didn't respond.

"Mairead?" he said. She jumped, and met his eyes again, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. You've just…got grass." She said, gesturing vaguely at his hair.

Al frowned and scrubbed at his hair. "There." he said with a grin. "Gone?"

She bit her lip and shook her head almost apologetically. "Not even close."

Al rolled his eyes and leaned towards her, "Fine." he suggested. "You get it, then."

She gave him a startled stare, blinked, and then smiled and reached over to deftly pluck a few brownish strands from his tousled mop of hair.

Al peered up at her, and gleefully raised an eyebrow. "You're blush-ing, Nolan." He said in singsong voice, slowly grinning.  
She reddened further, and retaliated with a frown and a fistful of dirt.

"Now, _that's_ mature, oh great Ms. Seventh Year." He said, bouncing upright before furiously rubbing the dirt out of his hair and shaking it on to her.

She gave a very satisfactory screech, and threw her notebook at him. "Potter!" she cried. "You're such an – an – _ugh_."She rolled her eyes and waved her wand, making the dirt fly up and swirl gently back onto the ground.

"Flashy." Albus said, giving an impressed nod.

"Thank you." She said primly, adjusting her skirt. "Now, will you bugger off and let me finish my essay?"

"Mai_read._" He said, dramatically raising a hand to his chest. "So cruel art thou?"

She made a face at him, "What's _that_?" she said. "Been hit on the head harder than usual?"

"No," he said, exasperatedly. "Shakespeare. Remember? That excruciating lecture you subjected me to?"

"Excruciating?" she said, looking outraged. "I'll have you know -"

"That they're masterpieces of Muggle literature, etc. etc. etc." Al rolled his eyes, and flopped onto his back. "You crazy Ravenclaw, you." he said mockingly.

Mairead didn't say anything, but a foot suddenly prodded him in the side. "…I'm not crazy." She murmured.

"Only to Rosie." He countered. "Everyone else is quite positive that in twenty years you'll be married to a four-hundred year old folio, or something."

"Rosie's too nice." He heard her say "And I fail to see the problem with four- hundred year old folios." She added after a pause.

"Well, she's doing all right for herself." Albus shrugged. "And folios aren't very good for interesting conversations, Mairead." He lifted his head up to stare at her. The quirky curve of his smile slid off when he met her eyes. "Unlike me."

A tiny furrow appeared between her eyes. "Yeah." She said quietly. "Unlike you."

He flopped back down and swallowed. "Why did you - " he began.

"Because we wouldn't _work_, Al. You _know _that." she said firmly, with all the familiarity of an argument they've had a hundred times.

"I keep hoping you'll change your mind, Mairead – I keep hoping –"

"Don't –" she said, dark eyes pained as she turned away. "Al, don't –"

He barreled on, stubbornly. "That you'll come back."

There was a brief, full silence. Al stared at the sky.

"The pillows still smell like you." He said.

"Stop." She said, frowning. "_Stop. _I _told_ you why –"

"No." he said flatly. "No, not really."

"You were… getting in too deep, Al." She said, shaking her head, "And it wasn't fair, and I – I never asked you for that, Al, it wasn't fair of you to –"

"To love you?" He cut through her blustering. She pursed her lips. "You'll have to admit it to yourself eventually." he continued. "That it wasn't just _you_ – that there were two of us, and that anything you did would affect both of us-"

"It _didn't_. It _won't._ We're _eighteen – _we're barely out of school, a three-month relationship won't even matter in our lives." She said, a little desperately.

"Then why can't you just let it _happen_?" Albus said, urgently. "Why are you so afraid?"

She paused – and smiled. "Because I'm not a Gryffindor, obviously." She said, with a hint of her previous, joking demeanor.

"Neither am I." Albus said, unable to help the wry grin that leapt to his lips. "Aren't you embarrassed that a Hufflepuff is braver than you?"

"Almost." she said, smiling fondly at him.

"…We can still be friends, Al," she said at last, "We were friends, once."

"We still are." he said, standing and offering her a hand up. He looked out at the wide green expanse of the Hogwarts grounds. "But I don't think that's good enough anymore."


	7. roxanne

_this is my pulse, singing your name  
-x-  
And this I promise from the heart  
I could not love you any better  
I love you just the way you are  
–Just The Way You Are, Billy Joel_

Iris walks in a world of colour – from the aggressive slices of redblueyellowgreen in her hair to the four different House ties she knots around her neck to the fluorescent sparks of her bright green fingernails.

She pushes so hard at the boundaries of colour that it's nearly sound, sound that almost threatens to break her tiny, birdlike frame.

But all it does is carry her, and that is how Iris flies – not on a broomstick, but when she dances, leaping and floating on iridescent wings of music.

Iris looks out on the world through vivid, coke bottle lenses, shielding her wide, innocent eyes from the heartbreak and dull grey of the world, spinning technicolour dreams in the spaces between the clear plastic and her corneas.

Roxie is just the monochrome best friend who waits in the wings of the stage and watches Iris dance and hue and tint her way through life – Roxie leaves it to the Erics and Owens and Rogers of the world to untangle the multi-coloured threads of Iris' life and sweep her off her feet.

Roxie is the one who walks with Iris to class – elbows entwined, heads leaning together – the one who listens to her secrets, the one who pretends that watching Iris the way she does is what friends do.

Roxie is the one who pretends that her sad little black and white dreams don't suddenly trail rainbow strings behind them, pretends that somewhere behind the thick, starry lenses of Iris' glasses there is room for Iris to dream of her, too.

And, really, Roxie is fine, you know – she's entirely okay. She's fine with hugging a pillow while Iris talks, and eating breakfast at her side, and letting Iris pull her by the hand, with listening to her list reasons to date boys, and watching her when she walks hand-in-hand with them to Hogsmeade.

Just.

_Fine._

There's no catch in her throat when Iris touches her, no little thrill when she leans close to whisper in her ear, no shock of jealousy when Iris holds someone else's hand.

She's old enough to know better (_young enough to hope for more_) – she can let Iris be happy with a boy (_want Iris to be happy with her_) – she dreams practically, in black and white (_but she wishes in the blue-green of Iris' eyes_).

She tries her best to resign herself to this – this completely acceptable position as not-her-other-half, but her shadow, and most of the time she is actually able to forget the mad blue streak in her stark world and just go back to the days when she and Iris could laugh together and gossip have silly, little fights with levitated pillows.

And just being Iris' best friend is good enough – is something all Roxie's own – something only Roxie can give Iris, because Roxie is the one that Iris turns to when she's most afraid of being drowned in her own colours.

It's one of those times, when Roxanne is leaning against the headboard of her bed, and trying not to let Iris - pressed up against her arm, her hip, her legs - make her shiver, that Iris says it.

"Do you think balloons are lonely, Roxie?" she asks sadly, turning to stare at Roxanne intently, "Do you think they get tired of floating by themselves in the sky?"

Roxanne shrugs, tiredly. "I dunno." She says, fiddling with the sheets, "That's…that's like asking if you think anchors get lonely. Or rocks. Maybe some things are just… like that. By themselves."

Iris nudges Roxie's foot, smiling as she says, "Then they should tie them together, shouldn't they?" She leans her head against the headboard. "An anchor and a balloon. Together forever."

_An anchor and a balloon. A star and its shadow._

They must fall asleep like that - Iris whispering, and Roxie listening, and smiling when Iris needs her to - because Roxie wakes up to her dark-eyed stare.

Iris looks at her steadily. "Did you know that you talk in your sleep?"

For a blinding second, Roxie is hit with a shock of fear - after all, she knows _exactly_ what all her dreams are made of.

"Why were you dreaming of ice cream?" Iris asks, with an innocent smile.

Roxie throws an arm over her eyes and turns, trying to shove the sudden weight of relief to the same place she hides the flesh tones and clutching green nails of her dreams.

"You and I must have gone out for ice cream, of course." She says, mildly.

She wonders if she imagines the wistful note in Iris' voice when she murmurs, "I was hoping there'd be zombies." In reply.

Roxie turns back around – and she isn't imagining Iris' intent gaze, her ironic smile when she whispers "Your dreams are so _small_, Roxie."

Roxanne swallows against the lump in her throat, and instead of saying _I dream about you, Iris – I dream about you all the time, every day, _she says "Paint my nails?"

Iris paints nails like she is Da Vinci and they are the Mona Lisa – delicate features scrunched, an exaggerated frown sketched between her dark brows.

Roxie is tired of watching that face, its expressive changes, its gentle turns – she murmurs a steady stream of inanities about her fingernails. "What kind of colour is that?" "That's a nice one." "How do you paint such small designs?"

Unusually, Iris is silent, and Roxie is gifted with nothing more than the occasional smile – until, at last, Iris sits back, glowing with pleasure and murmurs. "They're done."

They're beautiful. Sudden, contrasting loops and swirls – half-turns and dreamy shifts in tone and hue – and Roxanne is thinking that, compared to these beautiful nails, Iris, with her dark hair, her pale face, is shades of grey and black – monochrome.

But what Roxanne is babbling about something absolutely imbecilic – how the colours on her nails make her look like she lost a fight to some very vicious paint cans, or something, and is that even possible, because who's ever even tried to animate paint cans, really – when Iris leans down and kisses her, just like that.

Roxanne is stunned – her heart pounds, her eyes flutter shut, but, mostly, Roxanne is bright, Roxanne shines and glows, and right now, at this moment, she is the one wearing a thousand colours the one painted in every shade of the stars.

Once she moves back, Iris just stares at her with the strangest expression. In response to Roxie's unasked question, she finally says, blinking slowly, carefully, "I wanted to see what you tasted like."

Roxanne stares at her. "What?" she says.

"Cinnamon." Iris says huskily. "Nutmeg, a little." And then she leans back down, and her lips are sweet, and soft, and Roxanne scuffs up her beautiful nails in Iris' hair.


	8. molly

__I'm sorry this is so awful. I'm _so _sorry this is _so awful. Ugh._

* * *

_i knew it all of yore  
_-x-  
_Remember those walls I built  
__Well, baby they're tumbling down  
__And they didn't even put up a fight  
__They didn't even make a sound.  
__– Halo, Beyonce_

Lysander Scamander, with his too-wise eyes and his too-young smile, has a stare which looks a little bit over people's shoulders and a little bit right into their souls.

Naturally, everyone thinks he's mad.

Which is fine by Molly – People look at her picture-perfect family, then at the glorious mess that is Molly Weasley and the black of her lipstick and the angry swirl of her hair and figure she's a bit mad, too.

So Molly sits with him on the little hill in the grounds that day – aware that this is the third Arithmancy class she'll be late to this year – and she's surprised (but mostly uninterested) when he flutters his hands helplessly in his lap and launches into a very long lecture about… well, something.

Molly's just trying her best to get through as many cigarettes as possible before class – the green patch of grass with the chatty blond turns into a habit entirely by accident, and a ritual before she can help it.

Molly knows that she embodies all sorts of contrasts by the time she's seventeen – pale skin and dark hair, light freckles and coal-black lipstick, baby-blue eyes and that grimy cigarette –this is just another one to add to the list. So she sends out her painstakingly empty looks at the world with the ease of long practice, and smokes like she is smoking away a vengeance against the world.

Dealing with Lysander is turning out to involve a bit of the same, actually. Practice.

She's hardly surprised anymore when he begins chattering about animals and stars and magic which is nothing like their magic, and she's ignored so much from him to date that at some point she's, accidentally, unintentionally started to absorb some of things he says – conspiracies against Mermen, secrets in the clouds, mythical monsters and extinct cults in the mountains – and it's sort of funny how he believes everything.

She imagines asking him for almost two weeks before she actually says it out loud. "Why do you … believe in that stuff? Why do you believe in _everything_?"

As it's _possibly_ the first thing she's actually said to him in… seven years of acquaintance? he turns to look at her in what might be called stunned disbelief, before he turns away, frowning thoughtfully.

"Because… I'd be someone else if I didn't." He says at last, brow still wrinkled, eyes focused on the heel of his shoe. "And I don't know exactly who that would be."

Molly's not sure what that means, but for some reason it's almost exactly what she was expecting. A little dense, a little thoughtful, a little utterly mad.

To her surprise, he continues to talk, still staring at his feet, "How about you?" he asks, "Why do you… wear so much black?"

He's never sounded so awkward before – Molly wonders wryly how many other people he's ever had a conversation with.

_It doesn't get stains._ She almost says, and then changes her mind. After all, _he_ was honest, wasn't he? (_Was_ he? What does she really know about him, after all? Other than that he's got a weird obsession with Fringstoffers. And Blumpetrels. And Snangsniffers?)

"I've got something to prove." She says instead, and that's that.

And that makes it more… easy, for some reason. Or whatever. Most boys seem to think that they've got the right to talk to her– the right to make her talk to them. She likes that he doesn't really expect that – if anything, he seems to _prefer_ doing all the work himself.

She actually_ does_ listen to him after that, though – _she_ was the one who made this into a conversation, after all – and she's a bit surprised to find out that Lysander Scamander is probably the most brilliant person she's ever met.

He doesn't even seem to notice - he just whips out a statement that makes her thoughts slam into each other and tangle into a knot behind her tongue, and then moves merrily onto a vague comment about the weather or the grass.

Some part of Molly thinks it's the stupidest waste she's ever seen - Merlin, all of _that_ spent on different species of trees and the mating habits of _bowtruckles -_ but some part of Molly is smiling a little, because – well, just because. He says interesting things about the leaves, sometimes.

And it's not just animals and grass he's brilliant about – it takes Molly three months to catch on to his Bubblehead Charm – He's somehow managed to make the surface ripple so it looks as though the smoke of her cigarettes is passing through the air normally.

Molly almost hesitates the next time she's out shopping – she wonders when he decided to do it, if he planned out the charm, or if it was as artlessly easy as his every other action seemed. It _was_ a rather clever charm, after all, and how much of a sacrifice would it be to buy smokeless cigarettes anyway? (Well, two galleons, which is an obscene amount of money for a pack. But, most everyone else just glares angrily if they don't like her smoking.)

She doesn't end up spending the money, but next time they're together, she carefully funnels her smoke in the direction opposite him.

And that's basically how it goes. Molly smokes, Lysander talks, and both of them pretend they aren't doing it. At least, she assumes that's what they're doing, since he hasn't so much as looked her way in either Runes or History of Magic this year, but really, it's all right.

It's actually, properly, all right with them. _Molly's_ all right with them.

Until the day Lysander's bag droops open, and the wind teases out a piece of parchment, slipping it through the air to land perfectly in Molly's lap – she even suspects it is intentional, until she glances up and catches the look of unhappy surprise on Lysander's face.

It's her – a drawing of her. It doesn't look like her, though – well, the features are perfect, and there are her freckles and even the little scar she has under her nose – but something about the attitude of the face – something is _wrong_.

It's in the way her chin is tilted up, like the world has rolled beneath her notice, in the way a plume of smoke seems to tangle and seam with her hair, as though the cigarette is an inseparable part of this creature – a part of this fey, unfeeling Molly with the indifferent droop to her eyes and the insouciant curl to her mouth.

She's perfect; she's untouchable. She's _hateful,_ and Molly is entirely unsure what her face is doing as she studies it. As soon as she thinks she's gotten it under control, she looks up at him.

"Is this… what you think of me?" she says.

There's a sort of bewildered plea on his face as he looks at her, as he struggles for the right words.

"I – I didn't mean to hurt you – hurt your feelings –"

"I never said that."

Molly cuts firmly across him.

"I asked if this is what you think of me. Is it?"

He chews helplessly on his bottom lip for a minute, and then Molly doubles the picture into sharply folded quarters before she hands it to him.

She debates putting out her cigarette through its center, smashing that disgusting picture with its terrible dead eyes as he watches, so he understands, so he can see how cruel it was, how casual and how simple and _how cruel, _but she stands up at the last minute and grinds the cigarette beneath her heel as she walks away instead.

_Never understood a damned thing, _she is thinking, _never understood a damn thing about me, never understood, never saw me, never cared, never cared, never cared. _It's her fault, really, thinking that a charming lack of embarrassment when he talked to her and a Bubblehead Charm means he wants her to think well of him, means he takes her seriously, means that he _cares_ for her.

She thinks again of how inhuman the picture had looked, and is filled with another wave of revulsion. He doesn't care at all – he doesn't even think she is real. He doesn't think she is really a person, he doesn't see her - he was barely _looking_ if _that's_ what he saw - and _he doesn't understand her at all. _

He is just like everyone else who looks at her, except instead of a cold bitch or an uptight, privileged girl angry for no reason, he wants a blank receptive someone to make him feel less like no one cares what he is saying, and it wouldn't have mattered if it was her or Professor Binns' ghost.

It doesn't mean she is anything to him at all.

She pushes her chin into the air after that thought, and walks herself back to the castle with barely a tremble in her chin. She is Molly Weasley. She is Molly Annette Weasley. She does not care. She does not _ever_ cry.

The hill is absolutely off limits after that, but somehow, there isn't any other place in the castle worth smoking in at all – a grey cloud hovers around her hair without the wind to blow it away, and she thinks of the picture again, and then stamps out the smoke furiously and stalks off.

Without somewhere to go to smoke away her frustrations, she's jumpy and irritated and angry all the time. She pulls cigarettes out one by one and rolls them between her fingers until the paper becomes damp and she has no choice but to throw them out or puff them into stubs out the nearest window.

She builds a shrine to her fury out of cigarette butts, and hides them in the trash can.

And she may be going mad, but she hasn't cried, and that is a victory. (and she may be going mad, she may be going mad, she may be going _mad_ –)

He looks like a reverie when he shows up behind her in the Great Hall, and she is half convinced he's some sort of withdrawal symptom, until he starts scratching nervously at his elbow.

"Can I – Can we talk?" he says, and the elbow-scratching evolves into a full body ankle-rolling, wrist-rubbing, lip-biting storm as she continues to stare at him without a word. "I just –" he clears his throat, "I want to – we should … talk, and if you don't want to come out, I can say it here –"

But she doesn't want him to say it here. Anger clots in her throat like a coiling wisp of the smoke she craves, and the last thing she wants is to let it out near all of these curious eyes. She stands up abruptly, and pushes her way towards the exit, inviting him along with a pointed glance over her shoulder, grinding her fingers up and down, and up and down her hands all the while, as Lysander jogs to catch up to her.

They reach the doors to the hall together. Once they are outside, Lysander spends an interminable moment just staring at her.

Molly snaps out a, "So?" at him quickly, and he takes a breath – and begins rolling his ankles again.

Molly's nerves are ticking like a clock, and she yanks the cigarette in her hand to her mouth, only to find that she is now trying to smoke a fork. She shoots Lysander a quick look (to make sure he wasn't looking), and then proceeds to worry at it with her teeth while she waits for him to speak.

"I'm not really -" He says at last, dragging his eyes up from his feet slowly. "I just. I didn't - " He's back to staring at his feet, and Molly's heart is dancing along the skin of her lip.

"Didn't?" she prompts.

"You don't look at me." He says, at last, still frowning at his feet. "That's what – that's what I think of you. That you don't – you weren't listening to me."

"What?" snaps Molly. "I'm listening to you now." And she is, catching the strain in his voice, and then, suddenly, the way his hands are clenching in his pockets as his head shoots up.

"But, not really, right?" he asks, and Molly isn't sure what she's hearing in his voice. Whatever it is, it's brand new, and Molly doesn't know what it means. "You didn't really _ever_ hear me, did you?" He meets her eyes, and Molly's astonished to see that what she is hearing in his voice is _hurt. _

"At first I thought that you – you liked me, you know? That you were – were sitting there, were listening - or even pretending to listen, I don't know, I really couldn't tell - because it was _me _you liked not – not because I, I don't know, wasn't bothering you about your dad or your sister like everyone else, but Lorcan was – he was right, wasn't he? He always is, you know."

His hands are flying about his face now, flapping a little desperately – like wings, curling and uncurling. If he smoked, Molly thinks, he'd have a pile of cigarette butts at his feet, littered like a paper trail – maybe one that would lead to her own pile, squirreled in bathroom trash cans.

"Right about what?" she says, instead, because she doesn't have words for the slowly warming feeling in her ankles, rising up through her knees.

"You just – I was there, and it didn't matter who I was. I thought you never spoke to me because you were listening, and that – that you were talking to me, in your own way – but you just never _had _any words for me, did you?"

And it feels almost cruel to be smiling when he is so anguished, but she can't hide it, not even with her teeth on the fork and her face turned down. It was always what she thought– it is. _It is_.

She is struggling to find some way to say it, to show him. "I don't always have much to say." Molly mutters, finally, meeting his eyes, pulling them slowly up to his. "But it doesn't mean I'm not trying – In my own way." She adds, remembering that he'd seen that before – that he already knew that about her.

It stops him in his tracks. He lowers his hands and the dull ring of helplessness seeps out of his face.

"Ah – oh." He says.

Molly can feel the smile climb back onto her mouth, as though she couldn't really stop it if she tried.


End file.
